The medieval hunting lodge

We've reached M in the A - Z of Ashdown. M is for the medieval hunting lodge that stood on the site long before the current house was built.

The pre-Restoration history of Ashdown Park is fascinating. The name Ashdown is an ancient one. It is first mentioned in a chronicle of 777AD when King Offa of Mercia advanced as far west as the nearby village of Ashbury in his battles against the West Saxons. It is, as previously mentioned, also a strong contender for the site of King Alfred’s Battle of Ashdown of 871AD when he defeated the Vikings. 

In 953AD the manor of Ashbury including the lands that were then known as Aysshen Park came into the possession of Glastonbury Abbey.  They remained part of the Abbey’s lands until the Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1539. We know that there was a house built for the Abbot in Ashbury as early as the 13^th century and that Ashbury Manor was built in 1488 as a guesthouse for travellers and pilgrims from Glastonbury to Canterbury. At the same time, Ashdown Park was being developed as a hunting ground for the abbey. The King granted the abbot a licence of free warren at Ashbury in 1330 and also a licence to hunt which meant that he could both breed and hunt game on the site.

Documentary evidence tells us that by 1204, Ashdown Upper Wood was surrounded by a park pale, a high ditch and bank to keep the deer inside. You can still see the remains of the park pale in the fields to this day. Inside medieval deer parks there were areas of woodland, spinneys and lawns or grassy clearings, very similar in fact to the way that Upper Wood still looks today.

There was also a hunting lodge. We don’t know what it would have looked like. Most medieval hunting

lodges of this sort are lost to us now; either they fell into ruin or they became part of larger buildings. This picture is of a 14^th century hunting lodge in East Anglia that belonged to an abbey so it gives us an idea of what the Ashdown hunting lodge might have looked like. It would have been a substantial building that demonstrated the wealth and social standing of its owner – exactly like the current Ashdown House. Ashdown Park would have been a target for armed poachers so the lodge would need to be defensible. It would also have provided accommodation for the abbot’s gamekeeper and also possibly for hunting parties.

One final question remains. Where was the Ashdown hunting lodge located? Hunting lodges were often on the highest part of the hunting ground, which would have put it at the top of Upper Wood. However, English Heritage records suggest that there was an earlier building on the site of the current Ashdown House, which is another alternative. The farmhouse in Ashdown village, which dates from 1617, also incorporates a medieval core so that is a third possibility. It is another Ashdown mystery. 

In the style of Downton Abbey!

We have reached the letter D in the A - Z of Ashdown House. D is for a number of things relating to the history of Ashdown; there are the deer, for a start, since Ashdown Park or Aysshen Park as it was known then was originally a medieval deer park belonging to Glastonbury Abbey. Then there is the rather intriguing dew pond that used to exist by the coaching stables but has dried up now. And there is William Dobson, whose magnificent portrait of Prince Rupert, Colonel Murray and Colonel Russell hangs on the second landing. Oh, and it features a dog, and I have blogged previously about Boye, Prince Rupert's most famous dog.

Today what caught our eye for the letter D was a link to Downton Abbey. Fans of the programme may have seen this gorgeous house on the right, which is Sir Anthony Strallan's home in the series. It is Hall Barn in Beaconsfield, in the 17th century the home of Edmund Waller, the Poet Laureate and Royalist. The house was built before 1675 and is surrounded by 17th and early 18th century pleasure grounds, park and woodland. Waller was banished abroad for a time and travelled widely in France and Italy.

Like Lord Craven at Ashdown, Waller brought back ideas of the continental style of architecture and this is evident in the style of his "new" house at Beaconsfield, which is contemporaneous with Ashdown. The architectural similarities between the two houses are very striking. Call us biased, but we think that these two are amongst the most gorgeous houses around!

Ancient Trees of Ashdown

There are many old trees in the woodland at Ashdown Park and two that The Woodland Trust has identified  as being officially "ancient.". There is no precise definition of an ancient tree but there are some guiding factors: They are trees of interest biologically, aesthetically or culturally because of their age, they are trees that are in the ancient stage of their life, and they are trees that are old relative to others of the same species. Trees grow at different rates and so a 100 year old willow or birch tree would be ancient whilst a 200 year old beech would be only just starting to age, a 200 year old oak would be beginning to mature and a 200 year old yew would be very young!


At Ashdown our two ancient trees are both beeches. One has a girth of 4.96 metres, the other a girth of 5.15 metres. It's difficult to assess the age of a beech on the basis of girth alone but both of these trees are several centuries old and may well have been standing when the house was built 350 years ago. Accordingly, as a tribute to Ashdown's anniversary this year, we have unofficially named them the Elizabeth Beech and the William Beech. Elizabeth stands on the back boundary of Hailey Wood. William stands at the back of Upper Wood. Both stand beside the medieval Park Pale. According to the Woodland Trust this is no co-incidence; many of the surviving ancient trees in the UK stand in what were once Royal hunting forests and medieval deer parks. It's wonderful that at Ashdown we have this link with the early history of the estate.


The Ashdown Park Pale was built in 1204 when the Ashbury estate belonged to Glastonbury Abbey and Ashdown was a hunting forest. Park pales consisted of a bank and ditch with a wooden palisade, or fence, 
on the top. They were designed to let the deer in through gaps in the pale called deer leaps, but once inside the emparkment the deer could not get out again. At Ashdown the entire existing wood was emparked.  Changes to the estate and the parkland during the 18th and 19th centuries have altered the appearance of the landscape, and the park pale that surrounded Middle and Hailey Woods has mostly been either ploughed out of the fields, demolished or worn away, although the later ha-ha is still visible. 

However to the south of the sarsen field and most particularly around Upper Wood, the park pale is still a magnificent earthwork rising up to 9 metres high on the escarpment of the hill. The photograph above shows the remains of the park pale where it intersects with the Lambourn road to the south of the estate. There is a footpath that runs up the back of Upper Wood (where the William Beech stands) and around the top of the park pale and from this vantage point you get a superb view of the surrounding landscape. You can also see what a huge embankment the park pale originally was.

There is one other verified ancient tree at Ashdown that is currently not on the map. A couple of years ago English Nature paid Ashdown a visit to assess the elm avenues. In the course of their work they also discovered an oak tree on the edge of Upper Wood. Measurements taken showed that this oak was old enough to be part of the original 13th century hunting forest. In honour of its ancient status and the connection to Glastonbury Abbey this has therefore been named the Glastonbury Oak. We are very proud to have ancient trees at Ashdown. They are living relics that inspire awe and mystery and have helped to shape our history.